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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Perfect Cup'o Joe

Have you ever drank a cup of coffee and wondered why it tasted so bitter? Or why the last sips were so sugary? Now, unless you like the element of surprise in each sip you take each morning (or whenever you drink it), I have decided there is a science to not only brewing coffee but also preparing that perfect cup of sweetened coffee.

Over the years, I've noticed that coffee brewed from grounds of a freshly opened bag doesn't taste the same as coffee brewed from the last grounds of the bag. Is it from lack of freshness of being opened for awhile or is it because all the smaller coffee grounds have all settled to the bottom creating a strong and bitter taste when brewed? I believe it is both. Again, if you like the variety in the different cups of coffee over the life span of the coffee bag, then read no more and go to the next paragraph. Now, ways to ensure a great tasting coffee every time is, of course, to have coffee beans which are ground just before the brewing process. However, if you're like me and buy a bag or can of coffee you can always turn it upside down and shake it up to mix the small grounds on the bottom with the larger ones on top. To address the freshness aspect, I've been told that freezing the coffee preserves the freshness if the coffee grounds are not used often enough.

I love to have milk and sugar in my coffee though not a lot, just enough to make it taste like liquid heaven. So, have you ever noticed your coffee starting out lightly sweet and then gets sickening sweeter the closer you get to the bottom? If you said yes but like the element of surprise, please proceed to the next paragraph. If you said yes and don't like the element of surprise, let me school you with the following illustration. Have you seen a tornado touch down whether in person or on TV? The bigger and well established the tornado, the bigger distribution of debris. The smaller and weaker the tornado, the less distribution. So basically, the bigger the tornado you make with your spoon in stirring your coffee, the better the sugar will be dispersed. However, it also might come with the spillage of coffee over the rim so I have developed a method of stirring that fixes the problem. Stir your coffee with a spoon (not a wooden stick unless you like the taste of wood in your coffee) 8 times or until you feel the sugar is dissolved then after every 3 stirs draw the dissolved sugar up by picking up the spoon then stir again three times and draw up... Do that about 3 times. Now you have successfully stirred your coffee, it's still in your cup, and it's completely homogenized with sugar.

For those of you who have ended up here because you like the element of surprise in the taste of coffee over time and/or you like different degrees of sweetness in every sip, hats off to you my friend! You are a wild one! I hope this has help you in some way to have a great cup of coffee.